My inspiration for this record of my days:

“The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less” -Anna Quindlen

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

In honor of Valentine’s Day, we had a special family home evening the first week in February. We talked about the Love of God, and ways to show our love for each other in our family. It was one of those lessons that seems to have stuck! All month long the kids have been remembering to pray that we will be able to love one another.

We also did a “heart attack.” We all made valentines for each person in the family, and stuck them up on our big empty wall in the living room. Happily, there were no repeats of the last time we did this , with people struggling to find nice things to say to each other.

One of my favorites was from Jonah to Josh. It said something like… “I love Josh because you eat stinky cheese and you hand out succers.”

It was so fun to wander by that wall all month and pause to read the things that we love about each other!

When the day finally came, I felt pretty special. I got a beautiful bouquet of flowers from my dad. I don’t remember a single Valentine’s day without flowers from my dad. He never forgets!

I also got flowers from my sweet hubby. I love that he knows me well enough to know that I would be thrilled with these:

It may not look like much yet… but those are yellow climbing roses! I planted them in the perfect spot, and I’m already smiling about how beautiful they are going to be!

Jeff also gave me a new porch swing, to go on my “new” porch! (More about that coming up soon!)

The weather has been perfect, and I have already spent hours out front on my swing!

For dinner I made individual heart shaped pizzas, and everyone “decorated” their own. It was a bit stressful with everything else going on, (piano lessons, crying baby, etc.) and Jeff suggested that maybe heart shaped pizzas were not an absolute necessity this year.

They may not be a necessity for anyone else, but they were really important to me.

I wanted to do something special for the people that I love. Making those pizzas was my way of telling my family that they are special to me.

You can see that my standard is not unreasonably high! Maybe some year I will be able to make darling crafts and set a beautiful table and write personal love notes in lunches.